Updates

Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson and pictured speaking at an event in Albuquerque in 2009.

The Council of Canadians mourns the passing of Graeme Gibson, author, educator, activist, friend and founding member our of organization. Gibson passed away on September 18, 2019.

“Graeme was a fighter for environmental justice and for the planet. His passion for the natural world informed his life’s work,” said Maude Barlow, Honorary Chair of the Council of Canadians. “We will miss him very much.”

Ottawa – At its Annual Members Meeting this past weekend, the membership of the Council of Canadians elected John Cartwright, longtime Labour Leader and current President of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, as its new Chairperson.

Through his activism spanning decades, Cartwright has helped champion better public transit, water protection, and campaigned to defend vital public services in Toronto and across the country.

He looks forward to his new leadership role within the Council of Canadians.

Council of Canadians votes unanimously to call for RCMP Civilian Complaint Report to be released immediately

Ottawa — On the desk of Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale is an interim report that Council of Canadians members, Mi’kmaq water protectors, and other anti-fracking activists from New Brunswick, have been waiting six years to see. It addresses community complaints about policing issues experienced on the front lines of the 2013 shale gas protest in Kent County, New Brunswick, which was also called “Elsipogtog” and “Rexton” in media accounts.

Less than 24 hours after declaring a climate emergency the government has approved the climate-killing Trans Mountain pipeline. Today’s decision is proof the government is just pretending to care about climate change, according to the Council of Canadians.

Canada continues to engage in negotiations with the right-wing extremist Bolsonaro government of Brazil, as part of the Canada-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement talks. The Bolsonaro government is explicitly anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-black, anti-Indigenous, anti-worker and anti-environment — the very opposite of the values the Trudeau government claims to hold.

Ottawa — The new NAFTA, officially known as CUSMA just cleared a major step on the path to ratification as it started second reading in the House of Commons. But Canadians and Americans alike will already start to see the impacts where it counts— the dinner table, according to trade watchdogs and farmers on both sides of the Canada-US border.

Canadian consumers at risk of dairy products from sources with lower safety, health, and animal welfare standards.

Ottawa— As the Canadian United States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is slated to be debated in second reading this morning on the floor of the House of Commons, the Council of Canadians reiterates that the government is approving an incomplete agreement which has yet to be improved by U.S. Democrats.